… doesn’t just mean Sales. It also means FREE!

Nearly ALL of my ebooks are set to FREE for today only. All you have to do is click over to my Amazon Author page (the link is HERE) and poke around. Most everything should show FREE, and if it doesn’t, click the book to see the price. If it shows regular price, I’m sorry, but it’s not included. There should only be four or five books that are not part of the deal, but there are FOURTEEN others that are! So, why not have a look-see?

And, please, spread the word! I’d love for all your friends go grab some FREE books today. Thank you all for your continued support!

Today is the last Friday of the month. What makes this Friday so special is that the last (for the year) of the FREE short stories has just gone out to my Readers Group! This blog post will be the companion for that short story in case anyone would like to leave a review of the story.

This month’s story is titled: Tilted, and is a self-narration from the protagonist/hero, as he copes with too much shit on a stick, as he would say. Here’s the blurb:

A self-proclaimed geek—with a penchant for cheerleaders—struggles through a particularly unpleasant day, filled with one misfortune after another. After narrowly avoiding expulsion, Chester skips school and takes refuge at a local arcade. As he tries to mentally bolster his collapsing disposition, the pixelated spaceships take more than just his last game life. Filled with despair, he returns to the scene of the early morning incident in an effort to right his wrongs.

That story will finish off the inclusions into my latest publication: An Anthology of Short Stories: Winter 2016, which just went on pre-order over at Amazon. The anthology includes the last six short stories that I’d been sending out to my newsletter, as well as the first Borrowed Souls book, titled: The Soul Collector. Trying not to toot my own horn, here, but these short stories have been some of my best writing. I am beyond excited to hear what everyone thinks about them. And if you’ve been reading those stories from month to month, you’ll soon be able to post your thoughts and reviews on Amazon shortly. Just as soon as the print book goes live, you’ll be able to do so. Or, you can wait until the ebook goes live on December 27th. Either way, I hope you will share your thoughts with everyone else.

Lastly, there will be another blog post coming up on Monday. It’ll be a HUGE ‘cyber’ post, if you catch my drift.

It’s the last Friday of the month, and that means a new short story just went out to my newsletter subscribers. This blog post will be a companion to the newsletter.

This month’s story is called My Sister’s Keeper. It’s a paranormal story about two siblings that have a much stronger connection than just their familial ties. Here’s the blurb:

When Stuart discovers that his physical touch has far more implications than just the sensation of feeling, he goes to immeasurable lengths to save his fraternal twin sister, Alice, from a tragic fate that is out of her control.

As per usual with my stories lately, it has a tragic ending … but a new beginning at the very same time. The story finished up around 3,000 words. It is a standalone story at this time, but I’ve already been asked to carry it on further with one of the characters. Perhaps, in the future, that might happen. But for now, it’ll be a great addition to the year-end anthology I have planned. Now, if you’re a subscriber and have read it, feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

November’s short story is underway and is going to be a bit longer. It’s about a troubled teen that experiences a strange day after hearing some disturbing news. With his future in question, he copes with one bad decision after another. If you want to be in the know, be sure to get subscribed before the last Friday of October and you’ll get to read it when it’s complete.

It’s the end of September and that means a new short story just went out to my newsletter subscribers. This blog post will be a companion to the newsletter.

This month’s story is called Words That Were Left Behind. It is a glimpse into the lives of Mick and Yvonne in the near future. Here is the blurb:

Mick and Yvonne’s difficulty with communicating to each other spell for troubled waters on their relationship front. Frustration leads to anger—anger leads to abandonment in this mild science fiction tragedy.

The story has an unforeseen conclusion that leaves you wondering if there are words that you should say now before it’s too late. The story came in around 2,300 words, and as with everything else that I write, could easily be developed into something more. But, it is a standalone story at this time. Now, if you’re a subscriber and have read it, feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

October’s short story is well underway and it has yet to be titled. It is a paranormal story about two siblings that have a much stronger connection than just their familial ties. As soon as more of the story develops, I will write the blurb and start working on a cover. If you want to be in the know, be sure to get subscribed before the last Friday of October and you’ll get to read it when it’s complete.

Now, I’d like to get some input, if you don’t mind. I have a brand-new trilogy that I’m currently in the very early stages of developing. It’s going to be a dystopian kind of story and will revolve around two or three main characters. Actually, the story begins in the current timeframe. Things are going to be normal for the characters and then possibly around a third of the way through the first book, some catastrophic event will occur. I’m still working out all the details yet and I don’t want to share too much. But, I’ve been thinking about going back to Kickstarter and opening up the development to some readers. I’ve run two other Kickstarter campaigns and they both funded successfully. Since then, I’ve been asked many times if I was going to continue using Kickstarter for the remaining parts of Linear Shift. Because of the delay between parts two and three, I didn’t feel like it was the right thing to do. I had already developed so much of that storyline, that by that point it didn’t seem like a worthwhile ordeal for either one of us.

But, for this new trilogy project, I am so early on in the planning stages that I think people might enjoy participating in its creation. My thought is this: offer up multiple levels of contribution, and in return, I will give you naming and creative license to help sculpt and mold several characters of the book. As planning has it right now, I’m looking at ten to fifteen characters that would be up for grabs, along with some fictionalized city locations. There will be a handful of other items that might be available too. This is all still in its infancy, so nothing has been determined. If this is something that you would be interested in, please let me know in the comments below.

Right now, my target publication date for book 1 of that trilogy is the first quarter of next year. This new novel will not at all interfere with my writing of Shifted Realities, the first sequel to Linear Shift. I am far enough along with that novel that it’s still going to publish in the first quarter of next year as well.

I just remember the fun the supporters of the previous campaigns had when they helped create a number of the characters. Like I said, I’ve been asked about doing this again, and here’s your chance. Let me know your thoughts below and will see if I can make things work out.

That’s about it for this month. I want to thank you all for your continued support, I truly appreciate it.

Today is a special day. Three years ago, today, I published my first book. It was Linear Shift, Part 1, and although it was a short start to the overall novel, it was motivation enough for me to keep going.

Now, today, I have a total of 18 independently published books and am included in 5 anthologies. One of which is an amazon #1 Best Seller. And if I have me way, the next three years will be even more impressive!

So, without further ado, please celebrate with me. For today, September 20th, and tomorrow, September 21st, nearly ALL of my books will be free or specially priced. The two or three that are regular priced are out of my control to change and I apologize. Grab them now if you haven’t already. Let all your friends know, because FREE is a pretty good price to discover a potential new author for them. Just click on the images below and you’ll be swept off to the Amazon page to take advantage of the special.

And why does the special run onto tomorrow as well, you ask? Well, Tomorrow is my birthday, and why not extend the celebration over to tomorrow as well? Right?!? I only turn a year older … well, once a year, I guess. But still. Celebrate!

FREE Books!

Books on Special!

Books that I couldn’t put on sale. Sorry about that.

Hello, September! Ok, it’s ten days into my birth month (Happy Birthday, to me!), but things have been a bit busy as of late.

After taking my daughter up to college at the end of August, my attention had shifted to Fantasy Football. I take my fantasy team (Meat Popsicles, thankyouverymuch) very seriously. Our draft was on Monday of this week, and I’d spent a fair bit of time preparing for it. It was a blast, and my top secret software (not really a secret) projects me the winner! Ok, ok. It predicts me the winner every year, and last year it would have been right if I hadn’t made a few bonehead roster moves throughout the season. But, I digress…

So, now that I’m relatively distraction free, it’s time to regain my focus on writing. The last quantifiable project I worked on was Perplexia, A Crystal Medallion Story. It was my August’s newsletter story, which was read by hundreds of my subscribers for free. Since then, I’ve been bouncing around on various writing projects: namely, September’s untitled Newsletter story, A Wool (Hugh Howey) short story that will be included in an upcoming Chronicles anthology, and Shifted Realities (a Linear Shift sequel).

After I had finished The Hunted Assassin back in May, I had planned on diving right into Shifted Realities, but life has a funny way of side tracking life. My wife Cheryl had a stroke in mid-May which derailed my time devotion for the next novel. So, instead, I shifted gears and decided to slow down that process and work on some short-term focus projects instead. Hence, the reintroduction of the monthly short story! It’s all good, though. Really, it is. Cheryl’s doing much better now.

If you’ve been following my writing for any amount of time, you’d know that the Newsletter short stories were going on back in 2014, and then were combined into an anthology in July of that year. I had plans to continue that process in 2015, and then again in 2016, but my focus drifted to novel writing instead. It’s kind of tough doing both, and working a day job at the same time. So, the Newsletter short stories got shelved. Only after writing two more (still unpublished) in early 2015. They were titled Departure and Hunter/Hunted. My goal was to write six shorts and combine them with the first part of Borrowed Souls for my next anthology.

So, with all that said, a new Anthology is in the works! I’ll combine those two 2015 shorts, along with four from this year and publish in December. Perplexia was in August, and the remaining three (September, October, and November) have yet to be titled, but all have been started. The Anthology is planned for a December 27th publication, but you can read the stories as they come out each month. Naturally, you’d need to be subscribed to my newsletter to do so. So, what are you waiting for? Click HERE and subscribe today!

That brings up my next project. The Wool Chronicles! I was invited to write a new short story for this anthology a few months back, and after a fair bit of back and forth with Amazon, it’s actually going to happen! My story is in the early planning stages, and should have a first draft ready to go in about a month.

Finally, there’s Shifted Realities. I’ve completed the outline and am working (slowly) through chapter summaries. There’s a bit of a twist to this novel – there’s a story within the story – that’s proving to be a bit of a challenge. It’s going to be awesome, but it’s like I have to write two separate stories, and then intertwine them into a single, cohesive novel. If I’m successful, it will be an awesome tale. Fingers crossed!